The Woman of Asbestos Cottage and her Timaru connection

We went to a party recently, and I found myself deep in conversation with a descendant of a remarkable couple. It is such a story that it has been immortalised in the book The Exiles of Asbestos Cottage by Jim Henderson. Their names were Henry Chaffey and Annie Fox, or so I thought...

As it turns out, Annie Fox was actually born Anne Selena Best on 5 July 1877 in Timaru. She was the daughter of Edwin Best, a tailor, and Elizabeth Read. She attended Timaru Main School and helped at home before marrying Peter Valentine Fox, a butcher and cook, on 2 August 1896. The couple had two sons. However, the marriage was violent and unhappy, and Annie often found herself without support. Eventually, she fled the relationship, leaving her sons in Timaru, and continued to use the surname Fox while building a new life.

In early 1914, Annie travelled by boat to Motueka Wharf, where she was met by Henry Fox Chaffey. Together, they disappeared into the mountains of north-west Nelson. Although she became known as Annie Fox, her name at the time of her death was Anne Selena Chaffey. This revelation adds a deeper layer to her extraordinary story, one of resilience, reinvention and defiance.

Henry, born in Somerset, England, in 1868, had earlier migrated to New Zealand and worked in South Canterbury, including in Timaru, where he operated a threshing mill. He also experienced a failed first marriage before heading to the Cobb Valley to search for minerals.

Henry and Annie lived for nearly four decades in a rough wooden hut called Asbestos Cottage, perched 2,700 feet above sea level between the Cobb and Takaka valleys. Their early years were spent in a bush hut near the Arthur Stream before they moved into the unpainted, malthoid-roofed cottage built in 1897 by earlier prospectors. They lived almost entirely self-sufficiently: Henry prospected for gold and asbestos, hunted deer and goats, and packed in supplies from Motueka. Annie maintained a flourishing garden and preserved fruit in cut-down whisky bottles, storing dozens of jars beneath their bed.

Their only steady income came from taking rainfall and river level measurements for the Meteorological Service. These records later proved invaluable to the development of the Cobb hydroelectric scheme. A plaque at the power station honours Henry’s contribution.

Annie was a woman of formidable pride and dignity. She made all her own clothing in Edwardian style, with long skirts, high collars, lace, and a hat always perched on her head. She was never seen unless properly dressed. She avoided questions of a personal nature and never accepted charity. Inside the cottage, the walls were decorated with magazine clippings, mostly of the royal family, and deerskin rugs softened the wooden floors.

Their wooden cottage measured 25 by 12 feet, with a curtain dividing the sleeping area and a large open fireplace for cooking and heating. There was no electricity or plumbing. Snow, cold and, rain were constants in their high-altitude world.

Annie left the mountains just once in nearly four decades, reluctantly, for treatment at Nelson Hospital. Even when she broke her leg on 4 May 1938, she refused to leave the hut and insisted on being treated there. During Henry’s long absences while prospecting or hauling supplies, she coped alone. She learned to scare off stags during the roar and endured the devastating Murchison earthquake of 1929 on her own. She later described the surrounding rockfalls with an “uncomfortable feeling”.

On 5 April 1932, after Peter Fox’s death, Annie and Henry were finally able to marry. Neither professed a religious faith, but two clergymen rode in on horseback to conduct a firelit ceremony. Annie prepared a wedding tea of roast goat, potatoes, bread, and whisky.

Henry continued his backcountry journeys well into his eighties. In August 1951, he died in the snow while returning from a supply trip. Grief-stricken and unable to remain at Asbestos Cottage, Annie attempted to set fire to the hut with herself inside. She survived, but was removed, very much against her will, to live with her sister in Timaru.

Back in the town of her childhood, Annie was deeply unhappy. She never adjusted to her new life away from the mountains. On 14 July 1953, she ended her life with an overdose of sleeping pills. She was buried in the Timaru Cemetery two days later, in the General Section, Row 137, Plot 426.

Today, Asbestos Cottage is a Category Four trampers’ hut in Kahurangi National Park, administered by the Department of Conservation. It stands as a quiet memorial to the life Annie and Henry forged far from society, a testament to endurance, pride, and love in the most rugged of places.

So, to stretch my legs at lunch today, I walked up to the cemetery and visited Annie’s grave. To pay tribute. To remember the woman who grew peaches in the snow and wore lace in the bush.

Henry Chaffey, lived in this isolated hut for over 40 years with his wife Annie.

Today, Asbestos Cottage is a Category Four trampers’ hut in Kahurangi National Park, administered by the Department of Conservation. It remains a tangible reminder of a life lived on the edge of the wild, filled with resilience, pride and quiet perseverance.